New Member (Married Couple) From Mid-Northern-Missouri (Columbia)!!!

My wife and I got into chickens back in April. We bought ourselves 6 "pullets" from Orsheln, and I throw that in quotes, since 4 turned out to be roosters. My buddy and I did a cull at the end of May, leaving us with a single rooster and hen, both Rhode Island Red's.

Of course, my German Shepherd was going nuts a couple weeks later, so I looked out the window to see a fox carrying away my lone hen.

At that point, we were down to our lone chicken-- a 2 month old Rhode Island Red rooster.

A few weeks later, we ordered from California Hatchery (www.californiahatchery.com), based on their variety and large customer base. That was a disaster, and I will never send them another dime, much less penny. We ordered 9 chicks. 3 survived the trip. 2 died within hours of getting them home to heat, water, and food. I had to constantly nurse back to health the lone survivor, and staye awake for 48 hours in the process. I'm a Marine vet-- nothing dies without my permission, and nothing dies that I care about, and y'all got no idea how I love my chickens.

The folks at CA Hatchery, as part of their "Arrive Alive Guarantee," require you to take part in the macabre ritual of photographing your dead chick as proof you are not ripping them off. Needless to say, I did it, and 3-4 weeks later, they sent me my "replacement." It had 6 chicks in it, since evidently it was my fault the other two died in the original shipment. We got the replacement a week ago, and, of course, there was a weakling I had to similarly pull a Thoros of Myr (all my A Song of Ice and Fire fellow nerds will get this) on.

In the interim, roughly 3.5-4 weeks ago, we bought and received a batch of 4 brown egg layers from www.mypetchicken.com Everything about the process was an absolute joy. The chicks showed up healthy and strong within 48 hours of leaving the hatchery, and now, they are outside in the coop with their surrogate mother hen, a 5-6 week old Blue Andalusian.

Welcome to BYC Glad you joined us! I'm so sorry to hear about your losses. Losing a chicken at any age is awful, but it's especially bad when it's a chick. I'm glad to hear your second go round was so much better though! Hope it's the start of lots of great things for you and your flock.

I am sorry for your bad experiences...even the best hatcheries have issues. I do love My pet chicken and due to a postal error I received 12 little corpses. It was horrible. Most of my bad experiences are due to postal error rather than the actual hatchery and Chicks have been mailed for over 100 years so I am not sure from where the problem permeates.

My favorite hatcheries are My Pet Chicken - because they do have the best customer service Bar None
and Green Fire Farms because they have incredibly awesome quality chickens and pretty good customer service. One of my basque chicks arrived not doing well and as busy as they were, they still kept contact with me and I was impressed with that. They are really expensive but they have beautiful chickens.

(I am a Navy gulf war Vet myself)

I am excited to read your future posts! Welcome to the forum! Enjoy your chickens and post some photos please!!!!!!